


nightshift's story

by bee_bro



Series: yarrows verse [2]
Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human, Drinking, Fluff, Getting to Know Each Other, M/M, Mentions of past homophobia, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Pining, and gerry is a constantly there, but not as a heavy plotpoint, just very cute and non-stressful, michael works in a library, michael's dubious relations with gender presentation
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-19
Updated: 2020-06-05
Packaged: 2021-03-02 21:35:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,468
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24263707
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bee_bro/pseuds/bee_bro
Summary: Michael uproots his life, skips town, and gets the Lukas family to pay for his courses. Everything is new now and it's wild and oh so different from what he's used to.And there's a mysterious goth man that visits the library far too often.- or, a small-town au full of self-discovery and the discovery of the one you're very gay for
Relationships: Gerard Keay/Michael Shelley, michael shelley & helen richardson
Series: yarrows verse [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1751422
Comments: 61
Kudos: 190





	1. not yet

**Author's Note:**

> hi! so this takes place in the same setting and time as plantsman's fable (which is jonmartin centric) but can be absolutely read as a standalone.
> 
> this will be michael and gerry's side of the story and i will get on the grind of making this wholesome and stress-free

Michael still feels like he’s flying on inertia. Even a year and a half into his new life, it’s akin starting to run down a hill and realizing that if you stop, you’ll trip and tumble the rest of the way down, so better just keep running, better just keep letting your legs regulate what’s really a fall.

Get out of work closer to night than to sunset, let himself pinball between raves and strobe lights until his head hurts and his bones don’t feel right, and then go home on the wave of sunrise. Sleep for however long, and then he’s got classwork to do, blueprints to pour over, and if the night before was tame, he’ll sometimes attend the lectures. And then back to work in the evening. So, no, he’s going to college, he’s got a stable job and his own apartment. So it’s not a _fall_ per se. It’s just a cassette tape on fast forward and he has no clue how to hit pause.

This is due to turning his life downside up and moving here without contacts or necessarily money. However, it is also in part due to just how he _is._ Even before he got torn from his past, Michael found it far too entertaining to make people’s lives harder out of curious pettiness. This can be chalked up to Michael's honorary position as a compulsive devil's advocate: something that makes his wellbeing exponentially more interesting and positively much more complex than it needs to be.

He holds up a battered copy of _Magic Treehouse,_ doesn’t even check the cover, "Yes ma'am, this is the book your daughter checked out two days ago."

It is, in fact, not. He smiles pleasantly.

The daughter in question had borrowed a _cult_ book on animal sacrifice, and as it has been rather heatedly explained to Michael, had taken the turkey from the freezer, left knife scuff marks on the counter, and had gone to bury parts of said turkey in different areas of the yard.

And now the mother is here with some important questions, mainly: _why does the library allow minors to borrow books like this._ Michael clearly remembers the girl coming up to him with the book and asking to check it out, and is, therefore, ready to counter the mom with: _why was your child allowed to be out and about at eleven p.m. on a school night._

"What is your name again, young man?"

Michael keeps smiling, "Jared."

"Well, Jared, my daughter had told me all about the book and had described it in detail and I am sure it is not this." she points at _Magic Treehouse_.

Michael nods like he understands, before immediately retaliating: "However, ma’am, maybe there was never a book." he smiles wider, "Maybe she just wanted to honor a god you wouldn't understand. And she needed to blame something."

This has been escalating for a few minutes and the woman is furious, "Are you accusing my daughter of witchcraft? Show me the library check out records."

"No."

"What do you mean no?"

"The system doesn't work right now." Michael nods at the fully functional front desk without tearing his eyes away from her, "So, no, I can't."

"Then how are people supposed to check out books if they come in late?" She crosses her arms and glances between him and the front desk, as if she's scared he might do something like vanish when unobserved.

"They shouldn't. And they don't." Michael smiles even wider, his face hurts but the woman's instant paranoia at the unknown is enticing, "You aren't meant to check out books from a library that's closed."

"But- but you're open."

He tilts his head, "What made you think that?"

She blanks, looking around wildly. Where they're standing, the other patrons and staff can't be seen. It’s quiet.

"The lights were on and the door was open-"

"The library has been closed for three years, ma’am."

She stares at him, hard, and then takes another paranoid sweep of the visible aisles. Empty. Michael waits for her to look back and blinks with force so that it’ll displace his colored contacts for a few seconds. She evidently notices, flinching. Michael knows extensively that seeing someone’s eyes swim and splice off when you’d thought them normal is rather upsetting.

“I’ll be speaking to your manager.” She falls back to the most basic defenses.

“I’m not sure that’s possible. He’s died three years ago and that’s why the place got shut down.”

“What- no.” She doesn’t like having her sanity questioned and starts backing away mildly, the way people do when they don’t want their fear to be noticed. 

Yet Michael can't let the evening end without a punchline and calls after her, "It's time you wake up, ma’am, time you check if your daughter's real!" The second half is said to the woman’s back as she turns around and power walks away.

Michael laughs under his breath, feeling far less groggy now having had some entertainment at the expense of people he’ll probably never meet again. The strong smell of old cigarette smoke hits him like a freight train from behind. Ah, Jude.

She claps a hand on his shoulder, no matter how far up she has to reach to do so, “Having fun again, my dearest coworker? Decided to finally get reported and kicked out?”

Michael doesn’t flinch, but does dig his fingers into the paperback, “I don’t think Lukas has fired anyone ever.” Michael shrugs, effectively shaking her hand off where it’s warm and threatening. “And considering he owes me a favor, I don’t think I’m in danger of losing this job.”

“Pity, wouldn’t say I’d miss you.” She practically purs, which is upsetting, “And no I’m not inviting you into a conversation by asking what that favor was. I’ll let you simmer in your own backstory with no outlet, bitch.” She winks and smacks his ass which feels more like bullying than anything else.

Michael does what he’s been told is the ‘white people smile’, at a loss of emotions, “I’m not too keen on talking to you anyway, I wouldn’t answer if you asked.”

She flips him a friendly middle finger and turns the corner, out of sight. Michael makes eye contact with the tattoo on her back and both thanks and curses the Library’s lack of dress code regulation, allowing Jude to wear just a sports bra and in turn allowing him to wear rainbow mesh shirts and a whole array of similar shit.

Michael works the night shift for a few reasons. Chiefly, he’s never been in too much agreement with time. Just the concept of it and everyone’s insistence on making it the focal point of daily existence. Time was something that started slipping its hold on him in the last two years of high school, back when he dressed in gray and brown and had a socially acceptable hair-length.

He’d lose time, sleep past every alarm, stare at a wall for what felt like hours when it couldn’t have been a minute, wander his block for a quick walk and return home hours later to a worried mother and seventy missed phone calls. It only got worse after the affair that landed Lukas in his moral debt. After that, Michael skipped town, bought contacts, grew out his hair, learned that his hair had always been curly, and told Lukas that they’d be even if he found Michael a place to work and also paid for his courses.

The latter was very obviously a stretch on Michael’s part, mostly so Lukas could back out of it and still feel obligated to give Michael a place to. But… Lukas agreed to _very unexpectedly_ both _,_ and Michael wouldn’t look a gift horse in its mouth or ever question the Lukas bank account, so he accepted on the fly.

He woke up covered in someone else’s blood that evening, got patched up, told Lukas to find him work and college, and got dropped off at his new flat in an unfamiliar city with no belongings but a bank card signed to the Lukases within two days. Then off to work immediately, off to classes, and off to rebuilding his identity anew. And Michael still feels like he’s flying on inertia.

So now Michael gets to attend architecture courses and has a job he’s happy to learn provides night shifts. It’s almost ideal. 

With the entertainment of messing with patrons now gone, Michael reshelves the paperback and as an afterthought goes to reshelve the other returned books from earlier today. The day shift usually gets the bulk of it, but they’ve been struggling with only two people on staff for a while now and Tim doesn’t always get the books put away. Michael isn’t a fan of _organizing_ things but takes comfort in the rare system the Library uses, making the lives of uninformed visitors that much harder.

He’s in the old texts section putting away a leatherbound tome on midway dimensions when he finds the… the goth guy asleep on a beanbag. His hair’d make him look like that thing from The Ring if it wasn’t so badly dyed, Michael thinks, as he’s caught in the peaceful pause of the moment. It’s rare to see the guy not pacing or reading at a frankly impressive speed, fighting drooping eyelids at one of the tables and snapping at Library staff before apologizing with the exhaustion of exam week students. Except he’s like that every week. Restless.

He watches the slow rise and fall of his chest that dislodges the probably fake iron pendant on it. He’s slumped sideways and is with tectonic slowness approaching a state where he’d probably slide onto the floor instead. He’s also second away from drooling on the book he’s got open.

Not too favorable. For all of Michael’s uncaring towards the job he’s been handed, he can’t deny growing fond of the place’s swirling architecture and mazes of books. Michael moves silently to remove the book, hands moving to close it before his brain catches up and he manages to catch the page it was open on. He looks about his person for something that could substitute a bookmark and comes up empty, which can be blamed on the lack of pockets today’s outfit provides. Michael can’t just fold the page. This is an old, respected book. He also can’t leave it open in case the pages get bent, or worse, _ripped._

Michael doesn’t even deign this much attention to his studies. This is ridiculous. He stands there for far too long, mind reeling, and finally looks down at his wrist. There’s a whole shackle-full of bracelets and he takes off a hot pink rubber band one, which, when loose, makes the shape of a dick. He places it in the book as a marker and sets the tome on the floor by the bean bag, next to a ripped-jean clad knee. He then drags another bean bag over to support where the guy’s started falling off.

He only exhales after picking up his stack of unsorted books and getting a few aisles away.

Like walking in on a usually snappy stray cat sleeping or playing with a leaf, unaware anyone is looking, Michael feels like he’s just had a religious experience. The absolute serenity of the guy’s slumber is a severe diversion from the usual barely-polite interactions they have. Michael resumes his shelving, managing to work purely on instinct and honed experience. He can go back to wake up the dude when they’re closing.

He remembers their first Encounter. Michael had just detangled himself from a nasty powernap in the staff room and saw Jude leaning on the check-in desk looking like she’d ate a lemon. He approached with a _what’s cookin rat lookin,_ and she’d cuffed him upside the head with _you are if you don’t learn some manners._

And then she pointed out a figure at one of the tables, “He comes in about twice a week,” she rolled her shoulders, making for an intimidating sight without effort, “Rude as all hell, but he’s careful with the books. Wish he wasn’t, so I’d have a reason to ban him.”

This was a selling point for Michael, who’s always been a sucker for getting tangled into other people’s lives in the most unfortunate ways. Jude catches his arm in a vice grip.

“Don’t even try.” She stares at him impassively and Michael learns that he’s not the only questionable person on night-shift.

She let go and he could feel his arm burning where her palm was, “I think I’ve seen him on campus,” he’d ventured, studying the shoulder-length black hair and quick, ring-adorned hands flipping through an inappropriately large book, “Is he bad news?”

“For you, yes.” Jude sipped on her tea, that even from here Michael wondered the health drawbacks of, temperature-wise.

“Oh? I’m that special?”

“Yeah, you’re real special Michael.” She smiled sweetly, like scalding caramel, “Real special with that mouth of yours not having a pause button. Just stay away from him, kid’s snappy as hell and I don’t doubt he could beat you up.”

Michael also didn’t doubt this back then, nor does he now. What he _does_ doubt though is, while the guy _could_ beat him up, _would_ he? He puts a picture book of facades on the industrial section’s shelf. Half of the stack to go. They’ve talked a handful of times, mostly the guy asking Michael where something was or, on two occasions, employing Michael to get something from a top shelf. And contrary to Jude’s warnings, he was… agreeable. Impassive, pale face. Shorter than Michael, wide shoulders, tattoos of a simplistic eye on two of his knuckles, a truly horrible dye-job and unchanging long sleeves, no matter the weather. Eyeliner. Dark, tired eyes.

Michael runs into the guy within his second week of work. Michael watches him for months, occasionally helps locate books. Michael notices him around campus when he actually attends. Michael moves the beanbag. Michael will wake him up when they’re closing. Michael will one day learn that this is Gerard Keay. Not yet.


	2. keep hydrated, kids!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Michael goes about his routine and suffers consequences at the mercy of his own dumb mouth.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> lets GO babes, more michael's-bad-routine coverage and a huge shoutout to Helen the true mvp

Michael has been good at only a few sports in his life, chiefly baseball and badminton, the former of which he only got to play twice and managed to impress to phys ed teacher to no end. And the latter he attended for the sake of his mother’s conviction that he was a promising, good kid. He believed it, too, back then.

And he’s also been rather stellar at cards, if anything. Or at least stellar at cheating, big hands going a long way to hide a card or two. This was the dirtier of his pleasures growing up, mostly for the sake of reading people’s ‘poker’ faces and finding all the little ways to make them go insane thinking they were gonna win and then snapping that rug right from under their feet, taking the money, and calling it a night.

So’s to say, Michael’s been notably related to and good at games throughout his life. And now, as the club line draws closer and closer to the doors, he has to admit he might’ve gotten too good at a specific one: pregame. He’s trying to regain enough dexterity to go through all his pockets efficiently (there are a lot, and with various zippers too) and finding it difficult in the dark _and_ with Helen periodically throwing him off balance by running her shoulder into his.

“ _What_ are you looking for?”

“My ID, my ID,” Michael whines, coming up with only hairbands and chapstick in the pocket he’s investigating, “Helen, I’ve lost my fucking ID. They’ll arrest me.” Next pocket takes three tries to get into and contains only three old receipts, mentos, and his wallet, “My ID, my fucking ID.”

This is apparently exceedingly funny as Helen rocks next to him, absolutely dismantled with mad giggles, “Your identity has been _stolen_ , who are you now?”

“Sod off, if I’m not getting in, you’re going to have to fucken party alone,” he mumbles, digging into his back pockets now, nail almost catching on the fabric with the urgency, then immediately moving on to check his socks.

This seems to hit its mark and Helen drags out a long grumble, “Oh fuck this, let me see.”

She’s marginally more put together and Michael waits as she pats him down, finally discovering his wallet and pulling it out, flashing its hot pink plastic alligator skin at Michael.

“No, that’s my wallet, I need my ID,” he tries to bat it away but she’s inexplicably taller and lifts it out of his reach.

“Shut up, shut up, where do you keep your ID?”

“In my wallet- _oh,_ fuck, Helen, I’m so dumb, why do you love me?”

She lowers him the wallet and lets him pull the card out, “I don’t.”

“Ma’am that’s unfortunate,” he repockets the wallet and focuses directly on remembering to put the card back _into the wallet_ later, “Because I too don’t love me either and we can’t have two people with the same hobbies on this dream team. And who else am I going to monologue at?”

The lines moves up more. 

“Tough luck, please don’t talk to me panboy.” Helen steers them to the jumper, who checks their IDs and lets them in, finally engulfing the two in familiar nonsense of the night.

Michael leans up to shout his last coherent sentence into her ear, “ _Are you trying to rip off the ‘gayboy’ meme, because it’s not working,”_ and then they head to the bar.

Michael wakes up with hair in his mouth, in his eyes, and right under his nose, tickling with every inhale and making him worried about the potential of throwing up. He supposes that to be what woke him up from such guarded slumber until Helen’s voice whispers at him from the dark.

“Michael?”

“S’no, he’s dead, sorry.” Michael goes to move hair off his face, pulling his arm out from under him where it’d been neatly folded under, first clear thought being the dreading realization he’ll have to comb his curls. Eventually.

“Michael, where are we?”

This prompts Michael to finally open his eyes and roll his head, feeling like his brain is rolling a few seconds later than his skull is, “The fuck do I know?” He feels the carpet under his fingers almost immediately and before Helen can start complaining sighs, “The Library, we’re at the Library. I think this is the storage room.”

“God, I’m never drinking with you again. Everything hurts.”

She says that first part rather often.

“Do you have a phone? What time is it.”

He listens to Helen shuffle around on the floor, then the click of her phone turning on and the subsequent hiss of an inhale as the brightness must hit her full blast.

“Seven.”

“P.m. or a.m.?”

“Michael, seven p.m. would be nineteen.”

“Nineteen what.”

“ _Nineteen_ like _time_.”

He’s been trying to sit up slowly, aware that they needed to boot it before the day shift gets here, but stalled to think about _nineteen_ time.

“Oh you mean like military? No thanks, you have to do math for military time.”

Helen sighs somewhere from the floor, “Seven a.m.”

“Thank you, I’m turning the light on.”

Before she can protest, Michael flips the switch and they sit there for a good few seconds just waiting for the nausea and acute headache to pass. Helen’s on the floor, black hair out in a halo and tank top missing. Michael locates her heels in the other corner of the room. He drags the back of his hand across his mouth to check for her lipstick and is happy to come up negative, seeing as that neither of them are horny drunks but he’s had his accidents, smooching friends and dealing with repercussions back in high school. Found out he wasn’t straight after his badminton team went drinking after a tournament and that cute brunet guy who’s name he can’t remember was there. He didn’t kiss well but his father sure punched good. 

They pick their way out of the Library, Michael having somehow unlatched a window he knew had faulty screws last night to let himself in. Looking at it now, he wonders how drunk-him even… fit through that. And landed safely. Helen produces water from her bag and they chug it, standing in the street as the day slowly draws lighter, donned in their best, most eye-catching outfits, looking like phantoms of an acid trip.

Helen lives the opposite direction and so they split, Michael beginning his unpleasant walk back home, happy it’s not raining and happy he’s got enough bearings about him to walk in a straight line. He’d met Helen at a house party, rather fittingly, and they’d traded snapchats without remembering it. Then Michael had fallen onto a glass coffee table and she was the one to chaperone him to the hospital for whatever reason. This was in the first weeks of Michael’s existence in this town and he’d only had on-and-off drinking buddies and some classmates who didn’t hate him on sight. Helen stuck around- or he stuck around her. Michael opens his gallery and sees a bunch of drunk selfies, all of which he sends to her without sorting. 

His flat is big but still in the process of decoration. Peter Lukas really didn’t get it when Michael said ‘a small flat would be _fine’_ and so now Michael’s got to figure out what to use a guest room _and_ a study for. He strips, sits in the shower for a while, and puts his hair into a towel he hopes won’t come undone in the next few minutes. Then Michael crashes on the couch and doesn’t remember any dreams.

There’s perks with working at a library: it’s quiet.

Michael has mostly recovered after his post-party nap, equipped with more water and some painkillers, but still thanks the gods profusely that the Lukases own a library and not a karaoke. Because if Peter Lukas offered him a position in karaoke as payment for the debts he’d landed, Michael might’ve simply done a u-turn and gone back to his old life and a potential prison sentence.

Lucky that didn’t happen, then.

He’s wiping dust off the shelves with a rag – a job that Jared could admittedly do, but Michael’s extra few inches in height have convinced the entire staff that it will be _his_ job forever now – and spacing out looking at the ceiling when he runs his hip into someone standing at a shelf. They flinch away, followed by the clatter of dropped books, and _yes_ maybe Michael should’ve been watching his step, but what the _fuck_ whoever he just stepped on could’ve _moved_.

Michael lags a bit on a reaction, abandoning the rag and making himself look down at the victim of his tread. Instead of a ready-to-complain old lady or whoever else attends the library at such hours, it’s a pair of deep brown, eyeliner-framed eyes burning holes into Michael. The goth guy. Right.

He grumbles something under his breath and leans down to pick the three books up, righting their pages and looking back at Michael with a frustration that’s burdened by the bags under his eyes.

God, okay. Michael sighs, also too tired to really come up with anything clever or impressive, “We have a complaints box if you really want to take out anger on yours truly, barrelling you over, but I’d rather sleep than talk right now, thank you for understanding,” he’s marginally more awake by the end of the sentence, adrenaline doing some of its job as he remembers Jude’s warning. He’s planning on saying something like _I’m Michael and I’m fine with applying for resignation vicariously through bullying you_ or something like _I’m Michael and I’m the pinnacle of sleepy_ but he makes the mistake of thinking about both phrases at the same time and instead comes up with, “I’m Michael and I’m pineapple.” Out of _nowhere_.

His brain catches up with desperation: this is wholly too much and he turns around and leaves with a blank, frazzled expression. He’ll just never talk to the goth guy ever again, that’s fine too. That’s fine.

Jude makes eye contact with him (unpleasant) from where she’s sitting on her desk, opposite of a standing Jared as they toss an empty mug around between them.

“Wow, boo, did you see a ghost?” She muses at Michael, who finally shakes himself out of the stupor and retrieves the thrown-around mug from her, going to the cooler to fill it with ice cold water.

Jared grumbles at the lack of a ‘ball’ now and calls after Michael, “That’s because you keep messing with visitors. Your past decisions or… something. Have come back to haunt you.”

“Sure, Jared.” Michael gasps, coming up for air after chugging the mug, “Careful your ‘decisions’ about playing beer pong with your buddies in the staff room on the days the library is closed don’t bite you in your ass.”

Jude starts laughing as Jared storms away, flipping Michael off.

“What were you guys doing anyway, isn’t it your turn to sort returns?”

Jude shakes her head at him, swinging her legs against the desk, “No, they got a new guy working dayshift too now, so Tim’s done sorting. He’s going to try fix the digital archiving system. ”

“Nasty.” Michael nods, feeling marginally more like himself, “Well, good to have a salary for doing shitall,” he chuckles, “you get a promotion for throwing hazardous objects around yet?”

“Glass isn’t hazardous. We could’ve been throwing around a leaking gasoline bottle and then lit matches, just for fun, just to test fate.”

He sets the mug down and sticks his tongue out at her, blowing a raspberry, “We’ll see about that when glass shards start turning up in your coffee.”

“Oh! Threats of violence, how poetic. Watch out for gas leaks in your apartment.”

They smile at each other for a moment, neither _really_ meaning it, but also neither being obviously averse to going such lengths. Michael then tosses her the mug, hoping it won’t be expected, but Jude’s fast to receive it without bother.

She flips it in the air a few times, “So what happened?”

“I dipped into glorious incoherency when talking to that goth guy,” Michael shrugs with a smile, “Sleep is a treacherous subject but the lack of it leaves oneself with even more issues.”

“Wow, and you’re still alive?”

Michael tuts at her, “Jude Perry scared of someone? Noble, I’m in love him with even more. Every single thing that brings you pain brings me immediate joy.” He trots over to stand next to her, if only to annoy.

“I didn’t say anything about fear,” she bumps his arm with the mug, objectively painful but rather funny when done by her, a person physically capable of killing Michael, “only the understanding, that if he were to get mad at you, he’d end you immediately.”

“I don’t see how you two are different- oh! Wait, I do,” Michael draws out the last syllable on what must be a really ear-damaging note, “He’s got a sense of fashion and doesn’t verbalize threats.”

“How would you _ever_ know, Michael, dear? You’ve never talked to him.” Jude shrugs, “And I will not approach your fashion comment with any regard.”

“You wear tank tops and sports bras only. All the time. Yes, your tattoo is disturbing, _yes,_ everyone hates looking at it, but maybe wear a tie or something.”

“Rich, coming from you, you dress like a dumpster fire.”

He cocks a peace sign, “Thanks for the compliment,” and goes to crash back in the staff room to watch domino-line fails or something.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> poor dumbass, huh.   
> plantsman's fable day-shift employees be like: [are wholesome]  
> nightshift, immediately after: [commits health violation] [commits health violations] [commits health violations]


	3. occult books at 8pm

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Michael buys everyone pizza cause his main girl isn't up for partying.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry updates stalled for a while there ngjkdnfdjk i love my boys

Helen picks up on the eighth ring, “Look, if you’re selling herbal Viagra again, I do _not_ n-”

“This is Michael, for fuck’s sake, can you save my number?” Michael lies on his couch, jamming his light-up sneakers against the armrest and watching them twinkle, leaving scuff marks. “I’m calling to ask if today’s a yay or a nay.”

“Sorry, tonight I don’t know a Michael.” Helen clicks her tongue unnecessarily, “I’m treating a horrible gentleman to dinner.”

“Aw, Helen, bros before hoes.”

“If he and I start dating, I’m pretty sure I’ll be getting free drinks at Skyfall. And that _might_ extend to you. Win win.”

Michael twists in his couch, bordering on rolling off it, “Is it Mike Crew?” There’s a silence on the other side which prompts a snicker out of him at Helen’s expense, “Don’t worry, it’s hard not to reach the most logical conclusion when ‘horrible gentleman’ and ‘Skyfall’ are mentioned, but I don’t need to explain my ways. Have an evening.”

“You sure have a night too.” Helen hisses on the other side with no malice and they both hang up at the same time.

The ceiling is mostly white at this point of his residency here. There is a whole of two shoe prints on it and Michael _genuinely_ does not recall how they got there. They’re certainly his. He doesn’t know anyone else who has custom-made soles for their sneakers like that. They have the Kool-Aid man on them and he'd blown his Lukas allowance on it without a single afterthought.

He really doesn’t need a lot to survive. Before Peter guiltily agreed to offer him full monetary compensation for ‘psychological and societal damages’, Michael had already been fully okay with the idea of going on the run with nothing but the clothes on his back. So now, with access to Peter’s horrible money-managing, Michael has options. He pulls out his phone and texts Peter, _the library needs more beanbags and maybe a couch in the backroom )))) ? poll results say so_

There’s no poll to start with, and Michael follows it up with as many emojis as he can. And then when that’s all sent and done, what’s there left to… well, do? His laptop sits on the kitchen counter and Michael _knows_ he could be working. There’s a half-finished model of different arches on his work desk for an assignment. Emails that probably need answering. Or he can lie on his couch until it’s time to drag his ass to work.

He really, sincerely, does plan to get up and maybe go out to grab Gatorade or something but ends up passing out with one elbow under his back and one arm over his face to block out light. He’s always been both cursed and blessed with a lot of freedom to his joints, which has left him both adept at sitting on chairs without any legs touching the floor but also has gotten him stuck in the tube kind of slides on playgrounds as a kid, where he’d get bent weird inside and end up jamming. Gymnastics was a good outlet back then, as they’d give out painfully blue stretchy uniforms during lessons and he liked that _far_ more than what his mother bought for him to wear.

He was allowed gymnastic lessons for two years, until he got into a scuffle against his childhood friend who attended too. Lydia Hally-something was shorter than Michael but the unhinged breed of child to bite. They got along together well enough for the longest time. Both knew the other well enough by that point to fight to hurt. He doesn’t even remember what it was over anymore, but they ended up rolling around on the mats, slapping at each other and pulling hair. Two sport-people with pent up jitteriness going at it because of whatever drama being twelve immediately sparks in one's life.

Neither does he remember who started it anymore, but his mother had deemed Michael at a fault and he didn’t go to another lesson after that. He wonders where Lydia is now, sometimes. Ultimately doesn’t care.

Out of spite, he’d found a series of youtube lessons on stretching to increase and uphold flexibility as well as tutorials on doing handstands and the like, and did that in the safety of his room for years from then on. Now he’s off well-enough to lick his elbow or do a split and annoy Jared with it.

He must be out for a few hours before Jude shows up in his dream and Michael snaps awake.

The sun’s on its way to setting and puts everything into heavy contrast. Michael shoots up from the couch to find his phone and misses the fact his arms are mildly numb, slapping his phone off the coffee table in the process of picking it up. Okay, okay, no, he’s good. He’s not late to work. Even though he doubts it’d in any way bring him trouble if he was.

The initial adrenaline of waking up at a time you don’t know slowly passes and Michael rolls off the couch to stand up and stretch, regretting falling asleep. Since he’s probably not going clubbing tonight, thanks to Helen’s personal life, he could've slept all the same later. At night. Could’ve.

Michael remembers the fucking pineapple incident again as he’s walking to work, the plastic hot-pink chain hanging off his belt and latched onto the outside of his thigh making a pleasant repetitive clacking. God…. He does enough things to regret as it is.

He passes a pizza place and decides to pimp out the Library staff.

One more, he's the first of the nightshift crew to arrive, passing who he guesses is the new addition to the day staff. Someone in their fifties probably, cagey and miserable looking, long hair with streaks of white, a horrible mustard-color sweater vest over a button-up… Doesn’t even look fun to bully… Michael keeps walking into the recesses of the library without stopping to interact because where’s the fun messing with someone who already looks on the verge of crying at any minor inconvenience.

Michael sets the pizza on the staff room table and waves at Tim who’s packing his stuff up. Then shakes his head when he notices Tim eyeing the pizza box, “Trust me, better you didn’t.”

Tim straightens up a little, he’s fun, kind-hearted but fun. “Huh, I don’t trust you, buddy, but I’ll take your word for once, then.” He winks at Michael and makes his way out, “Have a nice night!”

“Oh, sure will,” Michael snorts, dropping his bag onto the floor and going to get soft drinks out of the fridge, completely ignoring the sticky note that reads _Dayshift Property, Do Not Touch!!_

“Tim told me to watch out for the pizza. What pizza?” Jude enters the room, already carrying the air conditioner remote and immediately going to spike the temperature way down.

Michael methodically removes the pizza box from the plastic bag, “Tim isn’t a good source, Jude, you should know how to avoid secondary sources. You work in a library.”

“I labor at the library, Michelle, this isn’t work, this is containment.” She throws her duffel down next to his on the floor and drops into a seat at the table, “Like exile in Siberia.”

“Is there pizza in Siberia?”

“Tim’s warning and the fact it apparently has been brought in by _you_ makes me wary of it either way.” She slumps in the chair enough to nearly disappear from view.

“Aw, I can’t be a good coworker and bring in pizza for everyone for once?”

“You literally cannot be a good coworker, Michael.”

Jared enters through the staff door, spinning his keyring on one finger, “I heard pizza.”

Michael immediately perks up, sitting straight and patting the table at an empty seat, “You did! I thought we could celebrate and have a nice little evening.”

Jared, bless his heart, lights up with a grin, “Oh? What are we celebrating?”

“My birthday!” Michael shimmies in his seat with a smile, to which Jude immediately sits up, pointing at him.

“Bullshit, you’re a July child.”

Jared sits down heavily, “Oh, who cares, the boy can have as many birthdays as he wants if he brings pizza every time,” he reaches for the box and opens it as Michael sits back, the momentum of the evening ebbed slightly by ‘ _boy’_.

When everyone’s face falls at seeing the pizza, though, he pulls the same sharp grin back onto his face, “Bone apple teeth, my fellows.”

“I’ve never seen more pineapple on one slice in my life, and frankly, I wish I’d died before seeing this at all.” Jude has a hand over her mouth, looking so so fucking tired. This sparks giggling from Michael, here expression simply too wretched.

Jared looks mildly stumped but ends up taking a piece, slightly miffed and supporting the ‘pizza’ under the weight of its only topping. Michael’s deep into a roll of melodic laughter as Jude dejectedly begins picking at a pineapple-untouched crust and Jared stands up to shake the offending fruit off the slice into the trashcan.

“Michael, why are you like this?”

Michael knows why and keeps laughing as Jude sighs shoving the far-too-hot crust into her mouth with a kind of deep hatred that she’s sent his way far too many times. Jared returns from the trashcan with a naked slice, scarcely covered in cheese, and begins eating it with a confused, blank expression, like he’s processing the flavor of removed pineapple. Michael can barely breathe when there’s a timid knock on the door frame of the staff room. They all look up, Michael unable to shut up and trying to focus through tears.

It’s the goth guy standing there, looking like he’d transitioned from annoyed exhaustion to equally annoyed surprise the moment he walked in on the scene.

Jude turns in her chair to look at him, “Sorry?”

Michael tries to clamp his mouth closed to muffle the laughter. It’s fucking difficult being sleep deprived on a constant basis and then meeting something even mildly funny.

“Um. I need help finding a book.”

Jude nods and turns back to Michael, absolutely zero intention in getting up. Michael attempts wiping tears from his eyes, “What? Why are you staring at me, go.”

“Sorry. I’m eating.” Jude holds eye contact as she puts more pizza crust into her mouth. Michael turns to Jared, who looks back and takes a bite of his piece very pointedly.

“Oh my god, mutiny.” Michael finally sobers, mentally that is, as he’s still racked by occasional giggles, “What have I done to be targeted as so?” But he does get up and move from out of the table, approaching the familiar customer in question, still grinning involuntarily and definitely without the sharper edge he’d like to give most of his expressions, “Sorry, how may I help you?”

The guy looks up at him, expression a bit lost and without his customary frown, hands clutching a piece of paper that looks like it’s been through seven pockets and a dishwasher. They’re still in the doorway and Michael would like to rob Jude of any more awkward moments to heckle at him about, better she not see any of this. He reaches to usher the guy away from the staff room, hand managing to blanket the guy’s whole shoulder (leather jacket with studs, mind you).

They walk out into the carpeted main area of the library and Michael turns to face him again – he needs something to call him, uh, shit – “Sorry about that, yes?”

The guy blinks hard and glances down at his hands, strong-looking but smaller than Michael’s, absolutely lathered in rings- quickly unfolding the paper, “I need to find a specific book, either in translation or the original.” He then proceeds to say something presumably in French and Michael blissfully blanks out all input the moment he hears him speaking a different language, voice dropping mildly with the switch.

Then it’s silence. _Shit,_ Michael needs to answer something, he needs to say something. Hard to say anything of use when you were paying to the way the words were said instead of their contents. At least he’s self-aware. Even at a cost.

“Um- let me see that.” Michael accepts the paper, _La Vie Execrable (Guillemette Babin)_ is scribbled there in round handwriting, _by Maurice Garcon 1926 edition._ “Right, okay, what is this?”

The guy sighs like he’d expected Michael to have direct knowledge of every book within these walls, “It’s about Guillemette Babin-” at the name, he lapses back into French pronunciation, “An apparent witch from the end of the seventeenth century.”

“By Maurice Garcon?” Michael looks up from the paper and is met by annoyed eyes.

“Yes. Maurice Garcon.” The way the guy says it makes it clear that Michael was butchering the pronunciation. “ _The Dreadful Life_ by Maurice Garcon, 1926 edition. Either in French or English is fine.” He repeats it with agitation, beginning to look more and more exasperated.

“Wow, wow, cool it, hun, we’ll find this book for you, the Library’s far too thick with knowledge for its own good, it’s bound to be here.” Michael pats his shoulder again, a bit surprised at the strong response. He knows people who are here at night are usually never the more polite type but _wow._

Improv club has left Michael able to do a _very_ convincing French impression, as in, gibberish that (to the non-French speaker) would pass perfectly for coherent speech. French, Russian, and Scottish. But this does not mean he is _good at French._ In fact, Michael stares down at the slip of paper and wonders how the fuck he is going to wrangle the already wacko system into showing him where this book is. Or if they have it at all. The guy hovers over him as Michael crouches at the card drawer, flipping through the title index with quick, practiced fingers, looking.

For an establishment for such shoddy staff (even he has to admit) and seemingly its own filing system that he’s never met anywhere else, The Library has a suspiciously good collection of books, and once you get out of the fiction and kids sections, quite a lot of original editions. It’s a sprawling building that entices Michael’s architecture-aligned thinking at this point with the way it utilizes space while remaining non-rectangular in room shape. And he leads the guy down shelves of books, between pillars, into the deep recesses of old, barely accessed books. He’s seen many a person sleeping here, sometimes overnight, not found by the staff on a good day. The index cards indicated the library did indeed have a copy of the book in French and Michael falls into the headspace of seeking out his target.

It rests on a shelf, binding old and beautiful. Michael snatches it up and passes it to the guy who’s been trailing carefully as to not lose sight of Michael, “Here you go, this is the special edition, scratch-and-sniff cover.”

To his utter amusement, the guy automatically scratches the binding and brings it halfway to his face before stopping and flashing Michael with sharp skepticism, “Who do you hold me for?”

“I don’t hold anyone for anything, I ain’t got the hands to hold much more than” Michael lift his left hand, “Cracking down on the bird conspiracy,” he lifts his right, “And the responsibility of breaking into the abandoned church every weekend.”

The guy blinks at him like Michael’s the hardest text he’s ever met, and, honestly, that’s a great compliment to the vibes Michael is on the grind to embody all day every day.

“Um. Sure.”

They stand there, staring at each other.

The guy’s definitely younger than his eyebags and frown lines would give. Michael’d assumed that he was in the last years of college if not someone who started late, but closer up he’s just… very tired. Not the kind of tired Michael can feel permeating his bones, not the buzzing, manic kind. The quiet, slow, heavy sludge of exhaustion he’s seen so many times when students approach him to ask for the umpteenth book on a single subject they don’t like.

He’s far too pale too, the unhealthy kind, the indoors and bad diet kind, and Michael wonders why he’s reading up on witches at 8p.m. He’d assumed it was a goth thing or something, just a severe interest in the occult, but the dreadfulness with which the man holds his newly requested book betrays something else. A well-contained sort of hatred.

Michael’s a well-contained sort of insanity. Maybe they can get along.

He pats him on the shoulder again, doesn’t know why he keeps doing it, and sighs, “Come on, I’ll lead you out.”

It’s the biggest mercy he’s shown in ages.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> r.i.p. pineapple pizza lovers this chapter is a direct line of bullying.

**Author's Note:**

> the ball's rollin babeeeey
> 
> come shout at me on [Tumblr](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/22ratonthestreeet) where you can also find [art](https://22ratonthestreeet.tumblr.com/post/617746786752315392/some-soft-gerrymichael-from-my-small-town-au) for this au


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